Dreams you can drive

When automakers need concept cars built, they turn to Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters

FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. - A craftsman stands at an English wheel, carefully working a flat sheet back and forth between the metal balls to create a complexly curved sculpture. In another area, artisans carefully smooth the surfaces of a full-scale clay model.

Just a few yards over the craftsman's shoulder, a new $1.6 million press is ready to apply 1,800 tons of pressure as it stamps out small runs of sheet metal panels. And not far from the team working in clay, a computer-controlled laser cuts metal, rubber, plastic or composite materials with super-human precision.

Such bending and blending has produced some of the more memorable concept cars seen at auto shows in recent years. The Chrysler Crossfire, Cadillac Evoq, Nissan Quest, Mitsubishi SUP and General Motors' Precept are just a few of the concepts crafted by Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters Inc. of Fountain Valley, Calif.

"We have the latest technology. We believe strongly in technology," CEO George Gaffoglio explains. "But we can go back 100 years and do it the old-fashioned way with the English wheel and hammers."

Metalcrafters is not the only concept car constructor in North America. (See page 4D-F.) But it gained a reputation for turning Chrysler's designs into breathtaking works of automotive art. As a result, many other companies hired the family business to turn their designers' dreams into metal, glass and rubber sculpture.

Mobile masterpieces

There was a time when concept cars were extremely fragile. Sometimes they were little more than painted clay models lacking interiors. Sometimes they were fiberglass shells. And sometimes they were cobbled-together metal panels that could be driven - with extreme care and at excruciatingly slow speeds.

Metalcrafters' concepts are built as real vehicles. They can withstand test-track shakedowns, international travel and manhandling by auto show laborers.

An automaker may invest as much as $2 million in a concept car project. "When that car is on the turntable, it better be done right," Gaffoglio says.

That begins with a great design. "The clients create the masterpieces," Gaffoglio says. "We concentrate on the execution - and hope they keep making lots of them."

Metalcrafters employees work two shifts a day in three secured buildings covering 160,000 square feet across the street from strawberry fields in Orange County. Each department is housed in a workroom behind doors with coded locks. More than 120 closed-circuit cameras survey the buildings, inside and out, 24 hours a day.

"Security is the No. 1 tool," says Gaffoglio, who adds that even family members are not exempt from being caught on camera. He laughs as he recalls the day his father was watching the monitor and caught one of his sons smoking after the son swore that he'd quit.

Family matters

Founder John Gaffoglio was an Argentine, Gaffoglio says of his father. John Gaffoglio moved to California in 1965, but returned to Argentina in 1968. He took "a lot of fancy hand- and air-powered tools - tools you couldn't get in Argentina - with him," Gaffoglio says. "In partnership with his cousin, he opened what became the best body shop in the country - not the largest, but the best - and was making very good money."

But in 1973, political and economic turmoil struck Argentina, and the elder Gaffoglio ended up "losing everything, but his experience."

The family returned to California, where John Gaffoglio and his sons (George was 15 at the time) went to work in car dealerships and body shops. But they were fired, as John Gaffoglio had put it, because "our way of doing things were very different from the 'American way'."

The K-car connection

In 1979, John Gaffoglio decided to start Metalcrafters. It began by doing body repairs on exotic sports cars and gained a reputation for converting Ferrari Daytona coupes into Spyder convertibles. In 1979, when Chrysler was ready to build its K-car prototype, it hired Metalcrafters. From that prototype, Metalcrafters grew into a company that builds prototypes, concepts and low-volume special components for automakers around the world. Nine of its concepts were at the stand at the Detroit auto show in January.

Though the company does not reveal its annual revenue or how many concept cars it is working on, Metalcrafters has grown to more than 200 engineers, project managers, designers and craftsmen and family members.

John Gaffoglio, 67, is chairman; George, 45, is CEO; Ruben, 44, is president; brother Marcelo, 37, is executive vice president; and another brother, 20-year-old Eric, works part-time while attending college.

The highest-ranking non-family member is COO Michael Alexander, 42, who three years ago brought valuable management skills from his work at aerospace company McDonnell Douglas. But even Alexander's family roots are automotive. His father and uncle were the Alexander Brothers, among the elite of Detroit custom car builders.

Hands-on knowledge

The Gaffoglio brothers learned the business from the ground up, sweeping the floor in their father's shop until he had time to teach them proper tool usage.

Learning to be clean and organized are important skills, George Gaffoglio explains, especially when you consider that the construction of a concept car involves "800 major steps, and each step probably has 10 other sub-steps." That's 8,000 steps per vehicle. Metalcrafters can handle as many as 10 concept projects at the same time.

Each step and sub-step is detailed in huge, computer-generated flow charts. Metalcrafters workers use computer terminals to receive daily assignments and report on their progress and completion in what Gaffoglio calls a "live system."

"We provide the best tools and the training," he says. But then, he adds, expect results.

"It doesn't mean it's the cheapest way to do things," Gaffoglio says, "but this way we control our quality and our own destiny."

That includes the destiny of Metalcrafters' employees. Consider Rafael Aranda's rise in the company.

"We always had a problem with painters," Gaffoglio says. "It was the materials, or it was the system, or it was something. So we went out and bought a state-of-the-art paint booth There was one kid, Raphael. He was 15 or 16 years old and from Mexico, and he didn't even speak English, who started sweeping the floors and would mask the cars (for painting)."

Gaffoglio liked the teen-ager's work ethic and can-do attitude, so "we offered him the job as lead painter. He and I went to painting school together, so I could learn whether the problem was the painter or the material. And now he's in his early 30s, and he's the No. 1 painter in the world."

More than concepts

Metalcrafters does every piece of every concept it produces except for powertrains and tires. Something as seemingly simple as a taillamp might require 40 pieces to be created and assembled.

The company also builds interiors. It fabricates the bodies-in-white that manufacturers need for pre-production crash testing, and it does special tooling and stamping for low-volume models for automaker management product evaluations.

Because of its expertise in prototype development, Metalcrafters has branched into other areas.

Its Camera Ready Car division prepares vehicles for TV commercials and still photography, does special camera mounts and rigging, makes auto show cutaways and handles vehicle transportation. Need a sport-utility posed on top of a mountain for a TV commercial? Metalcrafters will get it there.

The Second Stage division makes aftermarket enhancement parts. After building the concept version of the Plymouth Prowler, Metalcrafters built a removable hardtop for the roadster. Metalcrafters has full QS/ISO certification and makes parts that customize the Dodge Viper and Chrysler PT Cruiser.

Metalcrafters also can build an entire car for the road as well as the show stand. During a tour, we spot the shell of a large coupe in the back corner of a building. Gaffoglio admits only that Metalcrafters created a private, 10-vehicle production run of a "185 mph concept car" for someone in the Middle East.

Did you know that auto designers in the 1930s made full-sized models of concept cars using a process called scrimming? Scrimming involved gluing cheesecloth over a wooden frame. After the material hardened, it could be sanded and varnished. These durable concepts even had opening doors and seats.

Concept car gallery

Some of the concept cars Gaffoglio Family Metalcrafters has built

1. Chrysler Crossfire

2. Willys Jeep

3. Nissan Quest

4. Jeep Willys 2

5. Jeep Compass

6. Dodge M80

7. Dodge Razor

8. Chrysler Pacifica

9. Chrysler PT Convertible

10. Chrysler LHX

11. Hyundai HCD6

12. General Motors Precept

13. Dodge Viper GTS/R

14. Chrysler Hemi 300C

15. Kiss Prowler

16. Nissan Z Concept

17. Cadillac Evoq

18. Dodge Power Wagen

19. Mercedes-Benz SLK

20. Mercedes-Benz G-wagen 4x4

21. Mazda MV-X

22. Nissan Gobi

23. Mercedes-Benz M class

24. Mercedes-Benz limousine

It's a Duesy

This is Metalcrafters' busy season.

Auto shows are clustered in the fall, winter and early spring, so concepts are built from late spring through early winter. Therefore, "there's time for the staff to work on a new, special project," Gaffoglio says, such as a Duesenberg.

Metalcrafters' third division is Duesenberg Coach Building Co. and "the plan is to build a new Duesenberg, maybe 50 to 100 a year that Metalcrafters will design, engineer and build," Gaffoglio says. He is hesitant to say more - "we'll probably have some news to share a year from now" - other than that Metalcrafters is working with those who claim the rights to the famous American automotive marque. Besides, Gaffoglio says, neither Metalcrafters nor Gaffoglio really works as a brand name for a vehicle.

"Our approach is that everybody's pretty humble around here," he says. "We think we're pretty good, but we know that the minute you let it go to your head, it's going to end." D